slt2021 5 days ago

they already work almost for free, since all the money goes to the publisher and retailer.

out of $20 book, the authors earn about $1 - $1.5, for e-books its about $1.7 - $2

The value from book sales goes to retailer and publisher: two large corporations, and in case of amazon - a single big corporation

so please cry me a river about amazon's lost profits earned at the back of the book authors

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Aerroon 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Governments. You forgot governments. They take the bulk of the money, especially in Europe.

~25% VAT and then the publishers and retailers take their cut. The government takes another 40% in income and payroll taxes from that. The leftovers are what the author gets.

Buying from yourself is probably the biggest markup you can get.

	▲	slt2021 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		yes, if you add VAT and remove taxes from authors' incomes, it becomes even more laughable. its really might be better to publish for free and create a buy me a coffee

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Vektorceraptor 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a problem of publishers and retailers, and not a justification for distribution of mind theft.

	▲	slt2021 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		yes, exactly, annas-archive is the modern robin-hood that frees up the knowledge. it is not a theft, because people using annas-archive were not going to buy a book in the first place and publishers incomes didnt drop due to annas-archive

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akkad33 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Then what's the economic interest for writing a book

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kelnos 5 days ago | parent [-]

Very little. Aside from high-profile/best-selling authors who do make a decent amount of money, the vast majority of writers do it because they love doing it, not because they expect to become rich.

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akkad33 3 days ago | parent [-]

Now you can publish independently through Kindle or through learnpub. Would that not cut out the intermediary fees?

	▲	slt2021 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		not by much, kindle authors earn 70% royalty only if they price the book between $3-$10. outside that range they get 35% royalty so it is marginally better, but overall I cannot say that anyone got rich off of slaving away for Amazon Kindle, Inc